Take Holland - they have instituted a tobacco ban on restaurants and cafes. Big deal, you say. Everybody is doing that. Yeah, but does everybody allow you to smoke weed in those same restaurants and cafes? Well, Holland does!
Smoking tobacco in restaurants and cafes across Holland is now illegal, but customers are still allowed to light up pure cannabis cigarettes. Dutch coffee shop owners claim the law, which has effectively put a stop to smoking the milder varieties of cannabis cigarette, threatens to put hundreds of them out of business.
Mark Jacobsen, chairman of the BCD, a nationwide association of coffee shop owners, said proper implementation of it would require inspectors to check each cannabis joint for tobacco content. “It’s absurd. In other countries they look to see whether you have marijuana in your cigarette, here they’ll look to see if you’ve got cigarette in your marijuana.”
Research shows that the majority of coffee shop patrons prefer less-potent joints in which cannabis is mixed with tobacco, and only 18 per cent favor the pure cannabis alternative. Some cafes have said they will get round the problem by producing more pure cannabis brownies or “space cakes”, while others have built smoking chambers within their premises which are off-limits to staff. But a catering industry spokesman said 1,600 coffee shops across the country have been put up for sale because their owners were convinced their businesses were doomed.
The Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, which is responsible for enforcing the ban, said it had trained around 200 inspectors: “They can tell the difference between a mix or a pure joint from its smell and appearance.” The Dutch health minister, Ab Klink, said he hoped the law would help to rid the country of cannabis-induced idleness. “Consumers who spend the whole day hanging out in coffee shops will find other things to do,” he said.
Dutch coffee shops are licensed to sell small quantities of cannabis to adults over 18.
Us Weekly reports that Madonna’s seven-year marriage to Guy Ritchie has stalled out – and the singer has been hosting late-night visits from New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez at her Central Park West apartment in New York City.
Madonna’s Apartment
Ritchie arrived in New York City from London yesterday (sans ring). Rodriguez attended Madonna’s April 30 concert; Madonna sat in his seats at a Yankees game on June 22.
A-Rod is currently married with two young daughters. Former Yankee slugger Jose Canseco – who once dated Madonna – wrote that he hates A-Rod’s guts because he once hit on his wife.
Madonna’s spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg told Reuters that Madonna and Guy Ritchie are not planning to divorce.
“Madonna’s husband Guy arrived in New York last night to be with his wife and family (not in a last-ditch attempt to save his marriage, which does not need saving),” Rosenberg told People.
Regarding A-Rod, Rosenberg said “Madonna and Alex have the same manager, Guy Oseary. … They have met. They know each other, and Madonna took her kids to a Yankees game last week. There’s really not anything to comment on beyond that.”
Guy and Madonna, who must now justify their love. (sorry)
Starbucks Corp. has announced it’s closing 600 underperforming stores in the United States. The Seattle-based premium coffee company also announced Tuesday it expects to open fewer than 200 new company-operated stores in the United States in fiscal 2009. The company says it will try to place workers from closed stores in remaining Starbucks.
Florida may be hit especially hard by store closures and cuts at Starbucks. The coffee giant announced plans Tuesday to close 600 stores nationwide, slashing about 12,000 jobs. Central Florida’s slumping housing market may make it a target.
Experts believe many of the job cuts and closings could come from the 100-plus locations in Central Florida area. “I’m so depressed. Personally, I’m probably partially responsible for it, because I used to do Starbucks a lot and now I’ve had to cut back,” said customer Eilleen Antonescu.
Starbucks’ biggest national problem is lower-priced competitors, like McDonalds, offering similar coffees. But analysts say the company over-expanded in Central Florida, as well. In the Mall of Millenia area, for example, three Starbucks locations lie within walking distance of one another. “Companies, when they think they’ve turned onto something big, they over do it. They don’t know how to cut back, how to take it slowly,” Antonescu said.
Lewis Black saw this coming:
Why is there a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks?
Don’t forget the absolutely awesome Onion stories:
Earlier this week, my optimism about the infrastructure situation in India took a severe beating as I struggled to get to a meeting in downtown Mumbai crawling through what seemed like an endless chaos of traffic and road construction….what really got me was not the 1hr 40min drive - I was far luckier than almost everyone else on that journey, travelling in comfort and not having to make this trip everyday - but the appalling loss of productivity and the drain on energy caused by this.
As I sat watching the stop-start-stop pattern around me, I could not but help thinking how these infrastructural bottlenecks were making the whole system terribly inefficient…roads and traffic are not the only problem, Mumbai is also facing a severe power shortage as I write this. I was also in Bangalore and New Delhi a few days back - and although both these cities have their share of infrastructure woes, I am afraid Mumbai’s traffic problem has snowballed over the last few years.
When I mentioned about this to some friends, the response I got was: “Its not so bad because everyone factors it in while planning their day; we know its bad”
Some light-to-moderate traffic in Mumbai this morning…
India’s auto market is growing fast, and drivers will soon be able to go faster, too. On Wednesday, the national government raised the speed limit on private cars to 100 kilometers an hour from 80 — roughly, to 60 miles an hour from 48. Commercial traffic and vehicles carrying eight or more passengers will be held to lower limits. The higher speed limits would not apply to city streets, but on the country’s growing highways.
Sales are booming in India, which could surpass China as the world’s fastest-growing market for new cars in the next five years. In one area, however, India already leads the world: traffic fatalities. India has recently recorded more than 90,000 traffic deaths a year, and some reports indicate an even higher figure:
“Nearly 1.05 lakh [105,000] people die in road accidents in India. It is the highest in the world,” Brahm Dutt, secretary of the department of road transport and highways said at the end of a workshop last Saturday to firm up the government’s first policy on road safety. Dutt said deaths on Indian roads now exceed casualties on Chinese roads.
It may be an Indian consumer’s dream - cheap cars for $A3,000-$A3,600 within reach of millions of people in the swelling middle class. But it could also prove to be a traffic and environmental disaster.
In New Delhi alone, more than 200,000 vehicles are added to its streets every year, where they battle with cows, rickshaws and motorbikes for space.
Some light-to-moderate traffic in New Delhi this morning…
Delhi is an overwhelming experience. It is as if all of humanity has been squeezed into one city. The streets groan under the weight of people. The air is filled with deafening noise and sumptuous smells. Switch on the television and it is the same. Between channels blasting out voluptuous Bollywood love stories and pop videos, an endless stream of news channels dissect the latest political scandals, and debauched lifestyles of the rich and famous. Coming from China it is an almost shocking experience.
I am positive that the word clusterfuck was created here by some Westerner riding in a taxi around Delhi. During my month long stay in India, I heard someone say, “Traffic in India is like a functioning anarchy”. I thought that it was a perfect way to describe the orderly craziness! Anything with a wheel is considered a drivable vehicle out on the public streets. Bikes, scooters, tractors, wagons, wheel barrels and rickshaws are all road-worthy vehicles. I have collected some of the common rules, or lack of rules, about driving and transportation in India. My best advice to you is NEVER, and I mean NEVER try to drive yourself in India. It’s suicide. Westerners have no idea of Third World driving, so don’t even try. The rules are that there are no rules.
If there are lines painted on the road for three lanes, that means there is room for five lanes of traffic, leaving about one inch of space between cars, side by side, hurtling down the road. The equation is simple. Double the number of lanes painted on the road (including the shoulder of course!), then subtract one. Granted, this depends on the presence of bikes, auto rickshaws, or cars, but on average, the equation is correct. Remember, in India there is no such thing as personal space, not even on the road.
Stop lights are optional. When coming upon a red light, simply lay on the horn as you speed through the intersection. People run red lights because to sit and actually wait for a red light is excruciating. Stop lights are looonnngggg. I once noticed a Walk /Don’t Walk sign with a little countdown display. I’ve seen these in other countries. In Delhi I saw a countdown sign starting at 200. I am not joking.
It’s a double-edged sword, this user-generated content thing
It’s a simple equation that marketers can’t seem to grasp: The Internet plus free modeling tools equals giant dancing penises.
So it goes for Creature Creator, the free trial tool Electronic Arts released on Tuesday to herald the marketing blitz for the September shipment of its long-awaited Spore game. It’s the latest creation from legendary game designer Will Wright. You know, the guy behind the iconic Sims series. Gamers couldn’t wait to get their mitts on the free software which they downloaded by the thousands.
With the Creature Creator, you can make your own creatures, get them to dance around, and of course, upload them to YouTube.
You can also make Spore porn, or sporn - fantastical creations of a less imaginary, more anatomical nature.
It’s a double-edged sword, this user-generated content. On the one hand, it’s laudable to create a community around a game… On the other hand, not everyone’s well-behaved on the Internet. And if EA didn’t know that, they found that out right quick with the Creature Creator.
“Well, I guess we know what every half-wit will be posting pictures of from now on,” lamented one commenter on game site Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
Yes. Half-wits like us!
The following is Not Safe For Work:
And of course - you knew somebody would do it - the Goatse creature.
